Business and Planning Subcommittee 5.6.25

001I like IKEA cubes and there's like three of them so far. It's the fastest. I'm grateful to have got them because they have been resources to go back to like when we're having conversations. Weren't we talking about that before? Go back to All right. We are live but no video just audio. Right. Just audio. All right. It is 6:06 p.m. on Tuesday, May 6, 2025. This is the Easttown Board of Education Visits and Planning Subcommittee and tonight we are going to start with uh Dawn on facilities. So the elementary school HBAC project is progressing on schedule and actually maybe a week or two ahead of schedule with some of the HBAC stuff. The electrical service required for the HBC will not be ready for the December deadline. Oh, it's not going to come in. We're

002not going to get it till middle of November, probably. So, that switch gear has been ordered, but the delivery is anytime between middle of October till the middle of November. Um, so uh we are going to most likely going to wait another month or two and then uh apply for extension. But the part that has been ordered. So Airtemp is going to try. Sometimes you'll get put ahead of the line if you're willing to pay more. So they have enough. They said that they would be ask that question anyway. Concrete pads for the HBAC units are going to be installed on May 19th. There's one in the courtyard and two in the back of the school. They be installed. Uh the roof duck work is going to actually start this month. Uh it'll all be

003it will not be in the building. It'll all be on the roof. And Brown's work uh continues elementary school. Middle school field and grounds maintenance activities, they're ongoing. The middle school's not getting a lot done right now. Uh the high school, the field storage building is done. The overhead door was supposed to be Friday, but now it's going to be Monday. Then that'll be 100% done. Uh the HBAC Shilla project was started. We moved the shed and relocated that on the new pad. Uh we deported the pad for the new chiller. We did have a change order on that project. We didn't know that there was a vacuum inside the storage shed that for the CNC machine. We didn't find that until the shed was cleaned out. The chiller pipe, they are starting that uh

004pretty soon. There's work on the final design for that. Fertilizer and mowing operations are underway for season. We had the first fertilizer actually Monday for both uh schools. We are working we just started in the process of making a security grant for updating the alertist and all the access controls. Um we're working with a company that that that's their full-time job to write grants for security. Uh there's an award possibility of up to $500,000. Um it's um would be a complete set out fit out for the alertus and new access control uh panic buttons and stuff like that detectors for all three schools and the town did receive the the check for the elementary school envelope project that has been closed out and the money has been deposited for $622,000 back. The grant is a

005purchase service. We have contracted with a grant writer. Sorry, for that grant who is came highly recommended has a 90% positive track record out of Westport. I believe you said she's in her her office is in Westport, but I think they go back and forth between Manhattan and Westport. Yeah. She has connections in Washington from what I'm being told from an outside company. She's a I'm a lobbyist that knows people in Washington. She does have a 90% success rate and if nothing gets done this year, the money that we're paying will be used for next year also. Awesome. Yeah. So, it was worth I mean to get a half million dollar it like to be able to put in everything we want for security would be great. So, just that you're aware of how that

006is happening. And you said it could be upwards of 500. So is there a way that they decide how much you get based on what you write for or it's a max of 500, right? So she did say that if there's not enough money, they may say here's 300 and then what? Give you 200 the next year. Uh no, we'd have to reapply. Just give what they have left over. All right. Y and Okay, I'm gonna start with TA. Do you have any questions for Don? Um, so are we just how does the grant like how did this even come up? Like this is new to me. So So this was kind of out of the blue. We I walked with Alertis is our panic system for schools for the lockdown and we were working

007on doing updates for the budget. Put a dollar amount in. So we add it. So the so the contractor I was working with, Adam Mojac, who does the installation for Alertis, said, "You should really call this person. She is getting money for everyone around the the country and he's done work through her before, does installation." So we had talked about it. Trace and I have talked about it. uh spoke with uh Sandra who's the one that she's like the VP of the grants and uh she explained it all what the cost was and success rates and everything. So we thought it was kind of like a no-brainer. You did some research too. You validated. I was a little worried because the address came back. So I wound up I spent a lot I spent some

008time on Google. I found her. I found all the stories about her. I don't know where she worked, where she worked before her connections to Washington and there's a whole profile of all the people that work for her company. Well, it's not really hers. She's a vice president with something else. But so it validated what you learned from the representative from Alertis. So it just for that kind of dollar amount, we're hopeful. And what was the dollar amount? 7,000. So it's a purchase service. Well, that's great. So, we paid $7,000 and we are hoping to get 500,000 or something. Correct. And then what about the $622,000? That's from the envelope project. The town has received that money. That's what that is. The windows and doors and the elementary school. So, project is done. It's reimburseable

009by the state. So, we put in the state reimbursement and then state money that we got back to. Oh, okay. They've been waiting for it. They've been wanting it. So, everything got done so that the state could send the check. I just always think the word envelope is very strange. It is very strange and windows and doors. Building envelop. Yeah. I assumed envelope meant like exterior of the building, right? Anybody is listening. That made sense. Yeah. So it was something that we did and we were hoping to get it was a reimburseable project from the state but only a portion of the of the um portion of the project was actually reimburseable. Not everything within the project is reimburseable and then we only get a percentage of that recent reimburseable cost. So once the project

010is completely closed out, you put in everything, walk it through with the state, they decide what they're going to give you, and then we get a 56% back on whatever it is that they say is reimburseable. So the entire project was like 1.7 something million I think but that included some ceiling of the exteriors um that was not included and was not completely deemed reimbured. So so some some project some things within a project are reimburseable while some are not. So we never get 56% of the entire project. We usually amount percentage of and so 622 is what the town received. It's not necessarily capital. So it goes to the council goes to the town pays for all of that. It's a bonded project that the it just goes back. It goes back to pay

011it off. So 622 is what we get which is a portion of the project. That's correct. The town got which was about 1.7. Yeah. Okay. So he'll pay off the bond basically. There's one more though that's outstanding. I know it's not on the agenda. We can talk about another time. One more. We found one on on the spreadsheet for the roof for the high school, but we don't know if it's actually received $336,000 randomly when Val first got here and we assumed that that was the roof one because that roof project has been closed for the state. So, there's still 440 on the Excel sheet. So, so you got to look into that, but we definitely we can't like leave that. Surprisingly, there's quite a few towns with excess money sitting out there. It's updated.

012It may be 100% wrong the sheet, but we found it. So yeah, so you're on it. Y Laurel, yes. Um, okay. So you had mentioned about the switch for the HVAC at the elementary. Peter Masa who runs air said that sometimes if you're willing to throw a couple extra grand to it, you'll speed up the process. A couple of extra grand. Yeah. So take a month or two off of it. He said there's no guarantees. Sometimes they do it, sometimes they don't. So he was going to reach out and find out and ask about it. Okay. Which could speed the process up, he said. Yeah. So So when you say speed the process up, it means that would be two months, not two months behind like Well, we're still going to be behind for getting

013even the switch in. So, so can are we making this if we were to make the application now with the extension, would we still like stay with that two-month window? So, I actually say Tuesday, Thursday, we have another meeting Thursday. You know, I think he was hoping to have an answer by then. It's not really hopeful that that would happen because I think there's so much going on. Scott the engineer didn't feel like that that was all that great of a possibility. Uh the electrician didn't either, but they were going to kind of flip that out there. Best case would have it a month earlier maybe and we would maybe make the the deadline. Um but they were not ready to really start the paper for Yeah. extension. Yeah. the grants, although they do have

014the 1231 deadline and they're they say they're very hard set on that, they understand that right now there's a lot of Yeah. Yeah. back log on everything. So, the other thing with the grant is that we're only getting a very small portion of the actual amount that we're expending on this project and they may be willing to say that we've done enough to cover that portion of it. It's nothing compared to what we actually spend. Question it's it's not as as much. So, um I think that getting an extension is not going to be Yeah. No, the extension goes along with the switch being delayed. So, that extension time could potentially be this application time to keep us at that minimal delay as opposed to a greater delay. So, the worst thing about the whole

015switch gear is actually assembled in Connecticut. The parts from somewhere else. Yeah, of course. Okay. Um let's see. on the CNC machine at the high school. So, it was discovered it did not have one. No, it was actually installed in the shed, but it had so much stuff around it, nobody ever saw it. So, when we ordered a duplicate? No. So, we had No. So, the the the vacuums in the shed that actually pulls it to the CNC to keep it out. Well, no one knew that was there because the shed was so full. So when we got in there and started opening up, we said, "What's this?" So we found out that Dustin still needed it. So we relocated it to the boiler room, redid the electric and redid the piping for the CNC

016machine. Okay. So that was a change order, but not ordering any new equipment. Nope. Okay, good. Thank you. It was remove and and reinstall. Okay. I think that's all I have. Thank you. I have a question about the high school softball field. I know we had discussed that last time. What is the situation since I think we took that off of capital for 25 26? So, how's it going to survive? So, we we've done a couple things and working on a couple different prices back. Um, we have found out in this whole process that maybe it'd be good for a softball, but the field is too big. So, we may be able to shrink it some, which would save us money on redoing the outfield also. So, we found out it's about 75 to 80

017ft too long, the fences in for a regulation varsity softball field. Uh, so yes, it would probably cost more to put the fence up, but it' be cheaper to redo the outfield. Um, so I'm trying to work through that. Now, we got a couple prices. Um, we got one for the elementary school, too. I think it was 28,000 for the varsity field to retop soil it, reed it, and let it grow back. Um, we're actually looking at a couple another option of us actually doing it, rotoelling it up, and overseeing ourselves, which would be a minimal cost compared to that 28. Uh, but I've been talking to Mike too about possibly doing another fence to make it a regulation softball field that be more playable for the varsity teams. So, um, it is going forward.

018There's just been a two, three different options that have been floated out there. Is um, this going to impact next season? No, it'll be playable next next season because they're playing now, right? But it could be not playable the third season. Like are you saying that this work is like going to be after this season's over? We're we're going to shut it down to outside play and we're going to start working on it. Okay. So it'll be ready for the high school next year at the regular season. And any uh did you have any estimates for the elementary school playgrounds? Uh no he got sick. Oh the the salesman for O'Brien got sick. He had to go to the hospital. I think he had a knee problem and then he got sick. We just haven't

019met yet. Okay. So, any more questions? We go in order. Haslam's foundation donation. So, Mr. Col's here. Thanks for having me. Um I'm going to assume that everyone knows who I am and who Melanie is. Okay. I'm just um obviously I don't know if you know we have a foundation. It's in her father's name and our mission statement is to um benefit the kids and youth of in and around Easttown. So every year we do a big donation. Uh, in the past we've done the scoreboard at the elementary school little league fields. That was our first big uh we've donated to, excuse me, the Boy Scouts in town. We bought them a trailer. They were desperately needed a trailer. We bought it for one. Bought them one. Uh, we've donated to the girl the varsity

020girls softball team this year. We bought them uniforms so they could go down and use them when we they played in Florida. Uh, we donated to the middle school cheerleading squad. They needed new uniforms. We bought them new uniforms. So, we've are actively looking how to um donate in the town that benefits everyone. Uh we've donated to youth and family services. We've donated to uh the food bank. We we try to spread it out as much as possible. Um we were looking for a big donation for this past fall. Um and the idea that we came up with actually it started with Melanie and I. We were at a Yukon um baseball team game up at their stadium. And I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's a beautiful stadium, but on the

021surrounding edge of the stadium where they have uh lawn seats, they have aderonic chairs just lining the out uh the sidelines. And our son Tyler, he he's a freshman of the high school. He started playing soccer this year. And so we were going obviously going to every game. And we started to notice that fans were sitting, students and adults were sitting on that top row retaining wall. They wouldn't walk down because it's a long walk. I'll be honest, it's a long walk all the way down to the bleachers. And bleachers are not the greatest thing to sit on for an hour and a half to two hours. Um, but they were bringing their own folding chairs and setting them up down that along that retaining wall. And we came up with an idea saying, "Hey,

022why don't we see if this if the board of ed and the school would be interested in having a pseudo student section up there and we'll we will donate I think it's going to be about 24 aderond chairs to line that um retaining on the top of it and then have a pseudo um uh student section. And obviously I ask you guys, what is the studio? What does the student section mean? What's that pseudo mean? Just a au a student section? I I mean we used to when I was in high school, we used to have at like actually I believe the high school's baseball or a basketball court has a sound. Sound. Yeah, that's a student section. Okay. Um so that was our idea. Maybe not. And and and again, it doesn't necessarily have

023to be a student section. We the night we we came up with it. There were parents up there. There were there were high school students up there cheering on the soccer team. We're like, we don't we didn't want to put bleachers up there. We look we like, let's just put up some anoronic cheers. And then we started tossing around an idea of maybe even naming it because again, the high the basketball court has sound. Oh, I see. And it happened to be right around the same time as when we had the earthquake this fall. Ah, I love the name. And I'm like, Melanie's like, why don't we just call it the fault line? Because that was that was a big term of everything that was happening. And it would it would obviously play into the

024school's mascot with the noises and everything like that history and basically the village of Mudus. And that is what we're proposing is to put up um put up the to donate the chairs. Um I actually met with Don back in November about you know the logistics of it. It's you know right now there's grass up there. So maintaining the grass or mowing around the chairs. We also talked about possibly um somehow locking the chairs to the ground by putting an anchor in and then securing the chairs with a chain just so they don't they don't walk because you never know what will happen. Um and then obviously the grounds crew trying to maintain around them what would we do? What would we what would need to be done? Um just so it's not that big

025of an inconvenience for them because to move 24 chairs have weeds growing under there. Put 24 chairs back. whether or not we just put mulch down or or something. Yeah. Or weed around it. Um I mean that's that's still up in the air. But this is this is our first step. Um cuz um when we did the I'll be honest, when we did the the scoreboard at the elementary school, we just came right to the board of ed meeting back then. So this is um I actually talked to Patty um at the last budget meeting. She told me to go this process this time. So that's why I'm here. Thank you. So um u but that that's that that's what we're proposing. We're looking for again a big donation. Uh we would pay for the

026chairs. Um if you were okay with the signage on the front of the wall, we'd pay for the signage. Um I'd asked Don if the town would be willing to install it. We pay for the install of it. Okay. Um and then one of the other things that we came up with too is you have these 24 chairs now. It's a possibility for maybe the athletic boosters to sell sell the chairs as a don as a sponsorship or a donation. You know, someone wants to donate in a memory of number them. You they can put a they can put a little plaque with someone's name on the back of the chair. Um and that's way for the athletic boosters to then make some monetary money or monetary off chairs as well. So that is what

027we're proposing. Five bucks have five chairs numbers one through five or whatever your they can come up with so and so. Yeah. In memory or you know if you're a former former student oh then number them per game and you have to beat five you have to beat six. We just I like I said um we saw parents sitting up there and sometimes you know I know my son his friends or his friends their grandparents show up. It's a long walk to get to the center field bleachers and they just they would bring their own folding chair and set it up there and I'm like well let's make it look nice. Let's do something for the town. Do something that. So yeah these are two um I we we had an artist do a couple

028renderings for us. Lovely. I think one of them is AI generated. Yeah, it's a really nice rendering. Actually, the first one, the first one's actually off a real p we went took a picture. So, that is the track, the hill, the wall, and the parking lot. And if you can look really quick behind the chairs, you can see Melanie's cute. I'm sorry, do you have any questions? Well, it looks like they sit right on the sidewalk, right? So, the only thing would just be the weeds that grow up between the the top. Well, there's not it's not a side. It's there's um if you go to the and I don't have a better picture um on me, but if you go to it's the retaining wall and it's about say six feet. Yeah. Give or

029take to a fence line and then that's where the parking lot then starts. So you you got about a six foot stretch of um right now it's grass. Actually it's it's a little it's the retaining wall. There's about a foot foot and a half of gravel and then the grass starts. Okay. Well, you can tell them into sports because I have no Yeah. The only thing I was concerned with would be somebody taking them because there's always a We we and we talked about that back in November. We we would buy um some type of um anchor system that we put into the ground and then we can chain each individual chair. Yeah. To the ground as a deterrent. I mean, someone someone's really going to want the chair, they're going to take the chair.

030And they would be made I'm sorry if I may go ahead. They would be made with whatever that resin is. That's the super sturdy extra grade. Yeah. We're going to buy the composite um the chair the composite not the plastic chairs, not the heavy wood chairs. We're going to buy the composite ones that will last. Won't will be easy to clean if need be cuz you can just hit them with a power washer. A lot of dust on there from the parking lot. Yeah, you will get a lot of dust. Yep. Um but you can uh you can easily wipe them down and they should blast. They they're not gonna they're not going to rot. They're not going to uh possibly break with the you know the plastic style. These are going to be the

031the heavy duty composite ones. Do you have any questions? Um no. I don't think I have any questions. I think it's a great idea. I do have one more question. Will they be out all year or will this be a storage issue? We we don't have a place for them. They probably have to be out. I mean, we the idea is to use them for the soccer season and then have them there for the track season in the spring. And it's okay that they're out all season and we The only problem with mine is they're colorful. So, they fade in color. So, if you get white or blue or something, we were just going to get probably just standard white. Yeah, that's the only thing. That's the only thing I've ever had with my compressor

032is they fade. Yeah. But if it's white, there's no place for chairs. Yeah. But covers that becomes labor intensive. You don't want to have to deal with that. Um, you could I mean you could take them down and just put them to the side of the storage the maintenance building up there and just put a tarp over if need be. Yeah. I mean that that would be your you got your decision to do um just to get them out. I mean yeah from I think the last soccer game somewhere mid November time frame. And then you got Yeah. And then in back into March I think is when the track season starts like late March early April. So, I do have one more question if I'm not overstepping. The um sorry, uh the amount of

033people that you see sitting up in that location bringing their own chairs, would there be any sort of question about there not enough chairs now and these take up more space and people feel that they're put out by these rented chairs they can't sit in anymore? I mean, is there a weirdness that's going to be we used to sit here and bring our own chairs, these are uncomfortable or I can't sit in this, you know, that kind of thing. We did um we did ask a lot of the parents while we were there. I was gonna say did you take you know would you guys be in favor of this type of thing and we did it was a very positive turnback. Um, as for renting, I mean, it's anybody I we weren't going to

034go about. Well, the booster idea, the booster idea, people could get a misconception. So, maybe Yeah, the I mean, yeah, I I could see where you you could you could think, oh, I you know, I sponsored this chair, it's my chair kind of, but I don't think Yeah, hopefully we'll But as for I mean, we can only put it so many chairs that are up there that, you know, are for the length of the wall. Exactly. Um, and that's why we figured about 20. I think 24 will fit. It might actually be a little less. It might be a little more. I don't know. I mean, we're trying not We're also trying to spread them out, too, so they're not on top of each other. Yeah. And as this description shows, just because again, I

035don't go to sports, so you don't know. Um, people are sitting up in this area because they are already, but then if people wanted to, they could sit here and people do sit there, right? So, if you feel comfortable in that, you could put your chair there. You could. Um I I really haven't seen a lot of people down. I mean there's a there's a lower retaining wall. Yeah. Um which I there were there were students sitting on it this fall for soccer. Um yeah, there's plenty of lawn space steeper from wall to wall. Yeah, there is a little Yeah, you wouldn't be able to I don't think you'd be able to put a chair, but you definitely could put a blanket down or something like that and sit sit on that lawn space. Make

036sure everybody feels comfortable because it's really nice. It would be a shame. I mean, it really makes a presentation, you know, you come in and you see that that makes it look like it's put together, right? It's the first thing you see when you when you walk towards the field, it would be. Now, I I did see the naming of the wall surrounding. I don't know if that's the same wall that we're talking about on your itinerary. Yes, it has to do with this project. Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah, we threw them both on. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean I mean and if you're opposed to the name or anything like that, let us know. I mean, we're trying to find something catchy. We weren't going to use the sound again. Yeah. Um but uh and

037again, like I said, it was it kind of came to fruition when when we had that uh couple quakes back in the fall. Yeah. And everything. Did you run it by the kids? Well, I'm sorry. Did you run it by your sporting kids? Um a couple of my son's friends know about it um that play soccer, so they were they were happy for it. Well, have they named their student section when you go to these things? Do they go I'm going to go hang with my friends and they have that area like they have that other thing? Well, my son's playing in the game so we don't have that opportunity. Actually, I mean Melanie Melanie obviously being a former student kind of threw the name out there. She she was the one that came up

038with the fault line idea. Very I like it. Very unique with the noises. It just uh it does tie well with the noise. It definitely works well. Um, I don't have any questions. We have a full board meeting next week. I don't think he necessarily has to come back, but I have no problem coming and doing another presentation. I'm sorry. It'd be next Wednesday the 14th at 7 p.m. we have a full board meeting, but that shouldn't be a problem. I think the presentation would be nice at the full meeting because more people may listen. I don't think we're none of us are opposed. I don't think I don't want to speak for you. No, I think so. So, sorry I just kind of So, Chris knows about the chairs, but we I never talked

039to him about the name. Okay. So, Chris Okay. I was just thinking about that, Chris knows about the chairs, but yeah, it's the board of eds decision, but we'll certainly share that now that we have received this. And they'd be uh and just an FYI on the signage, it wouldn't be it would be a metal I I we'd have to go and measure the I don't know what the height of the wall is off the top of my head and it would be a nice metal sign that would get um mounted to the face of the stone. Um we would probably ask to put a small sign on the end say donated by the HL Foundation at the end of the wall. Um and that would be it. And that kind of an installation, John,

040you guys do that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. I think it's awesome. I have to go take a field trip again to take a look at it in person. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Um, security grant we just discussed. Yeah. No, I was Yeah, that's fine. I actually have to go to the fire department meeting right now, so that's next. Thank you very much. Thank you. um security grant we've discussed with facilities, right? Because we just and the HVAC update. So, I'm going to move on to food services, which I'm gonna toss to Cindy. All righty. Um so, this time is usually [Laughter] too. No need to ask a quick time. 21st time. Good night. So, this is the time of the year when we normally

041talk about um our food services and our pricing and what we want to look at for next year. Um I got this actually from somebody Kira knows well over in East Hampton. Um not this one. This second one that I'm giving you this pricey one. This one um is East Hampton's prices. So they did just raise because I was trying to get a a last minute poll of of people around. The pricing is down in the bottom are current prices for 2020 425 from Colchester Portland glass region 8 and you know some place called East Hatam. Um the top prices are East Hampton's um where they were this year and where they projected. So, I just wanted to give you that because I always wanted to make sure that we're not, you know, pricing ourselves

042out of the water compared to our local fun. You know, I want other people to be able to see what other people are charging on their uh meal prices and that we're not out of the water. Um, as you all know, we are um food services is a uh selfcontained operation. So just to give you a little bit of the financial background of food services, food services is its own fund. It does not touch the operating fund at all. So the cost of the um employees, the cost of um the food, everything related to it all comes out of its own cafeteria fund. Reason for that is it's extremely highly regulated by the Connecticut State Department of Education and the US Department of Agriculture. So it is all self-contained. very um small place. The money

043that comes in, there's two places where money comes in. It's either purchases from two main places I should say. Um purchases of food. So if a kid goes in or a staff member or anybody goes and buys something from the cafeteria, it pays cash or through my payments plus there's that fund. Um and then the other side flip side, we get money from the state of Connecticut. We and the United federal government and with the USDA. So we get fund back for every one of our free and reduced meals. So there is a a a set dollar price that we get for every free meal that is served. Not who is eligible but ones that we actually serve. Um they give us back funding for that. And then reduced meals they give us there's water

044tissue. Um the um so they also we also get money for reduced um which is a reduced amount of money that they give us for that. Um, so if somebody is on a reduced price, if we charge $3.50, there's a set reduced price by the state of Connecticut, which I think right now is 30 cents for uh a meal. Um, and then they actually do give us a very small portion for all of the meals that are paid for by the um by everybody else. So um so to give you a general idea, we get about $4 for a free meal, we get $3.60 60 cents for each reduced price meal and then we get 34 cents for every other meal that we get. So those are our two main sources of income. It's grant

045what we call grant money. It's not really grant money but it's money from the state and the US department of education of agriculture and then the money that people bring in as cash. Additionally, we get occasionally money from things like um farmtot type food. So if we do local farms, we're getting extra cash from there. So, we have to we buy as many things as we can or buys all the things that she can from local farms. We turn in those receipts and um the US Department of Agriculture or the Connecticut State gives us some back. So, if we spend $5,000 in money at one of the local farms, they might give us $2,500 back. It's really random, hard to catch all these little weird things that they do, but we do get some of

046those money back. it is not enough money to pay for the actual expense of running a food service operation. Um so at the end of every year um if the food service is upside down which means that that we um they ended the year in a negative balance it is the responsibility of the board of education to put that money towards the cafeteria account to make it whole. So it comes out of our operating account and goes into the cafeteria fund account. So, if they ended the year with $100,000 short, the board of education basically has to give us $100,000. Give the cafeteria fund $100,000. Um, we have been um, and I hate to say blessed and co in the same words, but I'm going to say that CO really has funded our cafeteria account

047all the way through last year. like we have had an they have given us so much money the the federal government and the state so much money to make sure these kids are fed um so much money to you know we did free meals obviously all through co I mean they we we got a lot and then they kept giving us money like we got ARPA money that we didn't even know like we like every day we'd get but we'd get these cash things coming in so at the end of every year since co we've been on the huge in the back to the point where we could use all that money to to fund the first three months of the next year. So we have been able to carry that through all the way

048through until this year. Um so we have been very in a very good cash position for a very long time and we haven't had to put any money towards towards the uh um cafeteria. This year we will have to put some money towards the cafeteria. The other thing that we had to also fund from the board of education operating is if there's any negative balances. So, um and we're trying really hard to get negative balances. We were again um very fortunate to have a a very large donation that helped pay um quite a bit of those balances. A lot we used those first for anybody who was free and reduced who happened to have a negative balance um because obviously they have the most greatest need. So, that helped. We relieved a lot of families.

049They were very very very very very gracious and thankful for that. We also got an additional $500 from a gentleman just called it was $500 and said here they'll pay off this. So um so that's been really nice. Um but we are still about I think right now we were still at $16,000 in the negative for so even after the $10,000 donation. Even after the $10,000 balance I thought that that paid off. I thought that that donate that was the donation that Yes. you on the board. Yeah, it didn't pay. It didn't pay off. It paid off. Some people did not do their fe free and reduced application. So, yes, we had a few of those put the money towards their their their accounts first or I had people just recently. So, I didn't do

050it all at one time. Like when I came in, I didn't spend all $10,000 and just spend it on the top. Unfortunately, I'd have to say it's only about 11 families that that hold probably $10,000 of the of the outstanding debt, right? very few families that have the majority of the debt and we city doesn't know who's free or reduced. So it's not like we'd be like well that family they didn't fill out I do have that information but nobody else is allowed to have that information. So I can't share that with anybody but I do have the information as to who's free and reduced. No, but you don't know who was potentially qualifies but didn't Right. Exactly. So if they did an application and they failed on the application, that was my next level.

051Like if they did the application but they were like this and then they just didn't quite make it, you know, that was another one where we could think about that. Anyway, so the donation has been a huge help. But again, that donation was, believe it or not, three, four months ago and people have racked those bills right back up again. So um so that's unfortunate. So anyway, I just wanted to give you a little bit of the financial background. So, what I do um is I put together uh estimations of of how much it's going to cost and how much it might cost the board of education at the end of at the end of a year um out of pocket. We really try not to let that happen, but it it is a unfortunately

052a case in point u very hard to find a meal for $2 or $3 out there um anywhere even with everything. So, it does cost us more than what we take in. Um, so right now, um, I'm using the high school, middle school as the jump point because they're both at $3.75. So, currently we're at $3.75 for, um, our lunches at the two schools. It's 350 at the elementary school. Um, if we kept there, there's an estimation that we would be about $108,000 in the hole again next year. Um the PLE that is the price um meal price um equity. It is from the state of Connecticut. Actually, it's from the USDA. USDA has not put that out this year. Haven't even talked about it this year. I reached out to the Connecticut State Department

053of Education. They have no idea what the USADA is doing. So they said just estimate 18 cents more than what it was last year. So that's what that is. So the PLE used to be the standard. They said you can't go below this. you should you should be at least at PLE. You should be at least at $3.93 and that's where your pricing should start and go from there. Um, again, they didn't do that this year for next year. So, we're not really sure where we're at with that, but using what um Jenbo at the state told me I went with the $3.93. Um, if we went with that as our lunch price, um, the cafeteria staff would be very upset about the pennies, but besides that, we would be about $99,000 still, um, needing

054to contribute. Next option would be to bump up from 375 to $4. That would put us about a $95,000 liability possible. And then the last option is uh $4.25, which would be a, you know, pretty good jump in in costing for lunches. Um, cafeteria for breakfast is our I don't think I handed this out. I'm sorry. Um, breakfast is our um our chance to sometimes make some of that money back. Breakfast is a very inexpensive um meal to not only serve but to poo cost is pretty inexpensive as well. Um um so breakfast we really like we we'd like to push but I did just hand out to you um the trend just for the last two years. Um we are trending way down on our breakfastes. Now of course it's kind of probably hard

055to really be fair in comparison because breakfast was 100% free last year. So no matter what it was free for everybody. This year we had to start charging again. So you can see the difference um between having free breakfast at an average of 49,000 or 4973 you know 4,973 and 500. Tell me where am I? I'm right here. I'm sorry. Breakfast. I'm over here. That's where I am. But where are you? Where's the 4,000? At the bottom the average monthly. Right. So we we averaged about 49 um meals 4,900 meals for breakfast when it was free. We are averaging um just around 1,700 meals. Now that is paid. That's for the whole district. That is for the whole district. So So you're talking about this is elementary, middle, high school and then Oh, no. This

056is I'm sorry. These are actually um pay free reduced actually for the district. Free reduced paid numbers for the district. For the district. Yeah. It's not by school. Reduced. Yeah. So now I know I just said that breakfast was all free last year, but when I the government, but when I have to put in my claim to the state of Connecticut, I have to even even though everything was free, I have to tell them how many people who would be free actually were free who would be reduced and how many would have paid. It's the state. They don't want to make it. So you're saying the two boxes that are on the right hand side, top and bottom, the top one is 973 when breakfast was free. Average monthly average monthly 49 4,973 meals were

057served. Okay. When breakfast was free, we are averaging right now 1,743. Now that breakfast is no longer free. The columns, and I do apologize, I cut off the top. the columns that I have there. The first column is the number of of people who would be eligible for free meals. The second column is the people who would have been eligible for reduced meals and the third column is the column of people who um would have not been eligible and would have been at full pay. So you can see that you know people who people uh meals I'm sorry meals number of meals but related to their status their food status. So, so we're losing we've lost a lot of interest in breakfast, which is unfortunate because first of all, financially breakfast is a great product

058for us, but more than anything else, f breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Um, and we want our kids to eat. So, it is unfortunate that that we are really losing a significant number of our breakfast people out there. And the left is lunch. And the left that is lunch. So, the same deal. So, last year lunch was not free. last year was on a regular um that it is now. Um but we did average quite a bit more. Last year we averaged 7,000 people or 7,000 meals a month and this year we're only averaging about 5,000 meals a month. So we are down about 2,000 meals a month in lunch as well. Okay. Um and I don't know whether it's economy of scale. I don't know. I don't Has there been

059a conversation with the students to find out why meals are less attractive? So they do do surveys with students all the time. So I don't know whether it's necessarily the the food that's more of an athlete question. I don't I that's more the food director of food services. Um I don't know what the results of you know what it is that's driving this necessarily. Um I think a lot of it's economics but um there is right now on the table in the state the possibility of going back to free breakfast. Um, but it's actually on the docket for 2027. So, yeah, it wouldn't be for 26, which is unfortunate. Um, but the reason why I brought this up is that, you know, I I again did the same breakdown for meals for breakfastes um with

060no rate change. You know, we're in a good place. It actually helps our overall liability to um to for for the district to the food service. So, you know, if we left everything and it would help us about $6,000. If we up price to to $250, it would help us by about $9,000. And if we up to$275, it' be about $13,000. My concern with breakfast alone is that we're losing so many people already. I don't know whether it's necessarily the right time to up that cost. Maybe it's more the right time to up the interest or try to do something to try and get people to get those kids to pay. And and I know it was brought up about timing like maybe it's not enough time to eat breakfast, but last year the time

061was the same, right? Yeah. There was no change. No change in timing. So have nothing to do with that. So I don't I don't know what it is. I just remember that. Well, because now they have to pay. Well, the biggest I mean that's that's the difference. Now they have to pay just like the number of kids who were getting meals when everything was free was significantly higher. So what changed the variable was the cost. Right? So to back that up in the community, the food bank is seeing more people at the food bank and the people who make meals for people in town are seeing more and more people in need. And so I believe that that result is what we're seeing here at the school. I mean, they can't buy the food. They're

062not going to be able to pay for it at school and and to increase the cost might be even more detrimental. And especially right now when people are feeling so threatened, it's really very toxic. You know, families are are frightened and so feeding their children should not be what they're frightened of. So, just to give you an idea, when all meals were free, we averaged um the first year 12,440 meals lunches per month. And last year we averaged uh and the next year we averaged 10,444 meals per month. So you know we were over 10 for lunches averaging over 10,000 meals for lunches when it was free. So I mean obviously the finances and now we're down to five. So obviously the finance is a big thing. Um I found you know and and Karen

063Netta and I talked about it you know they they were aggressive in their pricing increases um but they um but they felt like they they had to do it because they again have it's a huge liability for the for the town or for the board of ed too when you look at demographics of East Hampton. Um, so I think going going back here, um, couple couple of things. The PLE is based on the USDA. So the USDA puts that out again. This is the what the Connecticut State Department said they haven't put one out and they're not sure they're going to this year. Surprise. Um, we're not sure. She just said USDA did they cut off the farm to food? They cut out the farm to food. So we didn't get a whole lot. We

064didn't have a whole lot on the on the on the hook for that. We only had like $5,000, so we're not going to get that. Um, some districts obviously that was a lot. But the Connecticut state continued the farm to food farm to table. They continued the local farms projects. Um, so we are still getting the funding from the state of Connecticut and the state of Connecticut is working very hard to make sure that they are continuing all that. I don't know what's going to happen with the USDA. I think they're just behind. I think it's just a I think it's just crazy. So, um, we can't wait till Nobody's waiting to find out what they're going to do. We just have to set our meal prices for next year. Nobody's waiting. Um, I always

065think about the green reduced applications and uh I don't even know what it looks like to be to be really honest with you. Is there direct to you and is that specifically on there? because I would be um is what specifically that it's just you that sees it as the as the business manager like sees it because is there a concern for privacy privacy I I would think that some people are just too they're embarrassed like that's been that's not just east people have you know they're proud and they don't want to go and ask no matter who sees it if it was one person or barely anybody but that form is the same form no matter what district. Yeah. We're not allowed to change the form at all. Um, can you include a like

066a It does go out with saying that it only goes to one person. There's only one person who evaluates it. I'm, you know, you only do it during the year, too, because I know I do it before school starts. I do it all the time. So, and especially as soon as you have a negative balance, I include the um the pre and reduce form in it. Plus, on every single documentation, every single meal, I mean a menu, it also has the link to a free and reduce um application. So, the free and reduce application is very short. Our social workers sometimes are um talking to people, but they're not allowed, you know, they could just hand the forms out, you know, as needed. Um but I I can't share any information with anybody about any

067of that stuff. So, it is very very private. is very very I I can't even tell the superintendent. So, right, but I don't know if other if people if some people who might need this application understand that is what I'm saying. That's Yeah, I don't know how to get to that so much. I know that if you had an application last year and I didn't get it back, I keep reaching out directly just because I, you know, there's a deadline. So, they have the summer and like so they had an application in and they're good. I have to remind them in the summer you get the application back in and then I remind them in September because it ends I think October 15th and then I remind them again and then October 15th but I

068can't do it for them and they have to do it. Is there an online way or does it have to There's not an online It has to be on paper. Um there is an online way but I think it's like a it's it's very cumbersome and it costs the district because the state makes us charge pay for it. It's like another $2,500 or something. Um, but there I I think there is there's not a lot of districts that do it. There are a few that probably have the online portion. Um, but we do try very hard to get people to fill out those applications. Every every correspondent says please fill out the application. Do you have automatic recipients too based on so I would say probably almost 90% of our of our qualified um students

069have come direct what's called direct certification so the direct certification they don't have to talk to me they don't have to say anything if if there is a family that is receiving certain kinds of benefits from the state every month actually I do it even more often than like two twice a month I go in I check to see whether I everybody listed on there and that we make sure and as soon as they get as soon as I find out about it, I send them a letter saying, "Guess what? You're free." um or reduced or whatever it is. Um unfortunately, it doesn't relieve them of their any past liabilities, but it does take care of them from that moving forward. So, but that's also where I trigger in the donation. So, if somebody did

070all of a sudden hop on, I'll go in and say, "Guess what? Not only you're free, but I still have x number of dollars. So, I just relieved you of your past debt." which is again the the people who the recipients of of that donation have been extremely thankful extremely thankful. So that was really really nice that we were able to do that. Um so but really the the the the charge here is your thoughts of what you want to do. Um I'd love to say you know you're not going to have a liability. You're gonna have a liability. I mean that's just the unfortunately fact of the matter. um unless all of a sudden somebody decides that you know at the state I don't think it's going to happen at the federal level at

071this point because I think they're just so there's so much backlog but I think the state's trying really hard to try and find ways to get these kids fed because nutrition is really really important and kids learn better when they eat could give us some more money doesn't the state of Massachusetts not for charge some state I don't know which states do there are some states um The other thing that's out there and I'm just going to throw it out there in case you ever hear if you're walk looking at other schools, there is something called a C school. So a C school means that your level of free reduced percentage your percentage um exceeds a certain percentage and therefore either that school or the entire district qualifies for free um which means that we

072qualify for not having to charge anybody any meals. It's it it it sounds great because they lowered the um percentage from if you had I think it was 45% if you had 45% or more free and reduced students then you could qualify for the C. Um they lowered down to 25% thinking oh that sounds great so many more schools can do it. But if you do the finances of it to make it financially viable for the for the districts, for most districts, you'd actually have to have at least 67% of your population free because the the reimbursements are the same. And basically, it's that now the board of education is now funding and saying that we want to fund and have all of our students eat for free. So, there is that out there, but

073it we we're nowhere near qualified for that. So, Anyway, so I just in case you see there are some schools that give it up um do have free meals and there's there's reasons for that. So I did speak to the director of food services. Her feeling is that she would like to um really try and push breakfast for without increasing if possible. That was just her thought. Um and as far as meals for for lunches, um she said she would say whatever the board of ed would like to do. Um, you know, she'll even go back to dimes if you guys want to do $3.90 or something, but quarters are easier. But, uh, rather not do pennies, though. She was a little upset when I showed her what the BL was. She's like, "Please don't

074do 93 cents." I think my my cafeteria staff would kill me. So, um, but it is something to to think about and and it's really the board of education's decision and it's helpful to be able to do it now so that we can get ready and move forward. And as you know, uh, food's not getting cheaper. So, it's not getting cheaper. But it's like a double-edged sword if you ask me because I feel like if you keep it the same, and we all know food prices are going up. I feel like we might become worse off with our word of ed contribution. I also don't want to turn people off, but it's hard to find a full meal for $4. I mean, that's that's you can't I don't think you can buy a box of

075cereal anymore for $4. So, uh I mean, that's not even that's for lunch. Yeah. Um, I'd like to hear what you guys I think you'd have to increase even though it's just the quarter. I I know that we're having I know we're struggling in all sorts of sense here. That's my opinion. TA. Um, yeah, I'm not I'm not in favor of increasing the the cost. I just don't think it's a smart idea, especially right now. Um, I'm not a huge fan of the breakfast items that are available to kids. And that's one reason I do not have my kids get breakfast at school, although they have snuck it and they like to. Only one of my children. because it's so I don't know how much we have as far as you know I know I

076can look at the menus I obviously have the menus at home um I'm curious about the content of the meals I am for kids eating at school if it's the only thing they're going to eat then they should eat whatever it is that there is um but I'm it's really important for children's health and their brains to be eating healthy meals because then they will focus better at school. So that's something that is of particular interest to me. Um uh but yeah, I'm not in favor of I'd rather the cost go to the board of ed than to the individual people because if it lowers the number of kids who are getting meals and you know they need that meal especially breakfast like I we don't have a way of knowing and we're not supposed

077to and that's okay and that's good if kids are coming to school without a lunch. I guarantee you those teachers are not letting kids not eat a lunch. They're not. It's not. And well, I just want you to know that no one gets turned away. No one gets turned away. So provide so we have we have to we have to regardless. So that's something that you right. So so just rest assured nobody that no one's going hungry and there and that students and we talked about negative balances. Students will never know what those balances. They that is not an information that is shared with them. So when they slide it in, they slide on by. So by it doesn't there is absolutely no and is a very very strict law. Yeah. And so based on

078though also the content of the lunches to have the price of lunch go up. It would make me say do I really want my kids getting lunch at school? because I have been in there to volunteer and that's so I do see what the lunches look like and I see what some of the breakfasts have looked like and um do you see a lot of our families packing the lunch for their kids? The kids are bringing food from both. Yeah, both. Yeah, maybe 50. There's a lot of kids who don't like the lunch and I've heard other parents say, "My kid doesn't want to eat what there is for lunch because they're picky and so I always have to pack." And I'm like, "Great." you know. Um, so I just it's important to me that

079it's a healthy lunch regardless and a healthy breakfast regardless. Um, but as Yeah, as far as the prices, like it doesn't seem smart to increase prices right now. It just does not. And we didn't increase last year. So, so just to let you know, we did keep the the meals for split. And then this is based on high school, middle school. So, just let you know the the elementary school is $2 for breakfast and 350 for lunch. Yeah, I'm looking at our menu right now. So, um and the menus I know I I I you know, everybody gives me a hard time about these meals. Um yeah, they're very regulated as well, what we're allowed to buy and what we're not allowed to buy. Um but there are definitely things. I mean, I know the

080middle school does some like bars, you know, like taco bars and yeah, you know, things like that that are very popular. It's really hard at the elementary school to do any of that, right? Because the kids can't they can't really cinnamon cinnamon roll versus, you know, scrambled eggs like and and I understand there's certain regulations, but there is a way to get around not giving kids a cinnamon roll, right? No, no, I understand. Yeah. No, I totally understand that. Yeah. Yeah. I totally get that. Yeah. You know, and you know, it's it's tough. It's tough. And then I mean, I think if the breakfast was more exciting, I'll be really honest with you. Breakfast is I guess I agree. But for kids, it's like Christmas because if their parents aren't letting them eat it at

081the home, but you do have to remember it does seem like Christmas. It's also I don't know how much regulation there is. Like for example, my child went to school after eating breakfast at home and got breakfast and decided to let me know that that's what she had been doing because she decided to be honest and that's great. Um I wonder how many kids, you know, do that type of thing because there's not the communication that's going and we can't Wouldn't you know because you had to pay? I didn't check the balance. Oh, you're a good mom. Absolutely. Keep it in there. No, no. What I what I personally did was I put the money in for this is how many lunches they're allowed to get. I allow my kids two lunches per week each

082um for the school year. So when are you going to call me, Cindy? That's my question. When it's in the negative, you you're going to call me. Okay. Because Yeah. So what I did is I budgeted out for it. I put that much in there. And so I'll be waiting for your caller. I have to actually go in. But she knows she this time of the year I send letters to everybody. But prior to this time of the year, I usually only send letters to people that hit the $100 or more in the negative. So if you're like 10, I'm not going to bother you. Um then I send out my Plus. It'll let let you know. Well, my payments plus does send an alert email alert. You know, we should get an alert. Yeah,

083you do. Unless you turned it off because you have the right to turn it off on my payments plus too. Okay. So like if you're on my payments plus and it goes in the negative and you don't want to see the alert, you can actually turn it off. But that's a different story. Not much. There's nothing you can do about that, right? But yeah. Yeah. And and we can't, you know, and there is no convers we don't know. You know, my kid used to buy lunches for all his friends. Like so so you know there's not a lot of stopping like we don't have the right the cafeteria staff is not in the position to you know they'll just feed whoever comes through. The other thing that is important to know it the difference between

084a meal and an item. So like the only time a meal counts is if there's a fruit, a vegetable, a starch, and a protein and you have to force and you have to get them the entire thing. So even if they go through and they just want the chicken sandwich, they have to get everything. They have to get everything. Yeah. Which I hate. There's food waste. There's also But we have to do it. Starting a food composting thing and that's wonderful because then it's not going Yeah. And actually the state is looking at requiring food compost. Yeah. That's awesome. I love they're also Unfortunately, I have to say fortunat unfortunately they are also looking at changing plastics so that we can't use plastics. We'd have to use the and if that happens then these prices

085will be out of the very purchase. It'll be very expensive. What are we what will we be purchasing in replacement? So instead of the inexpensive plastic forks and knives, we'd have to get the paper the uh woody the recycled wood ones. And you're talking a difference between everyone costing less than one cent to everyone costing. They used to use real again, but then they took that away because it wasn't sanitary. So, and people didn't feel comfortable eating out of a fork because what if it didn't together, you know? So, then it was individual. So, they all wash. Do you all wash dishes at home? dishwasher and you know this is something that we need to be having a conversation about at our budget meeting. It's like do you know how much it's going to cost

086us and it's a true piece of the conversation that's conversation it is not a piece of the conversation that actually goes to the town. No it doesn't but it goes within a piece of alignment. It'll be that mandated, you know, running lip ad right there. Exactly. What's the requirement for breakfast? Cuz I'm looking at the may elementary school and it's like for breakfast this specifically. Yeah. I don't know the the requirement for what I know it has to have some certain amount of of whole grains I think is the main requirement. We buy everything processed all in the little plastic. We also used to be able to collect the ones that you're right. Like one day is cinnamon rolls. No, I know. Of course. So you don't get fruit with that. You just get a

087cinnamon roll. Waffles for lunch is the worst ever. I feel for the I feel for the custodians on waffle day because there's But I wonder too I I I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. I I don't mean to overseed the conversation, but if I could interject for just one moment. I don't think we're here tonight to have a discussion about what is being served in the cafeteria right now, but we are here tonight to determine whether or not we want to change whatever the prices are. So, I would wonder if maybe this conversation is a more productive one to have either with the full board having the conversation about how we pay for our food or are we okay to continue this right now is my question. I'm not sure if we're outside the boundaries of

088we're kind of outside the boundaries at this point. But but part of that is what does it take to get people to buy more, you know, to buy more. So the conversation is will the increase of pricing deter more people buying. Yeah. Well, I think based on that decision, that's that's where we need to to the body of this conversation would make me lean towards Tea's argument. Don't raise the price. These kids need to have the food we have provided for them. Obviously, to a certain extent, we don't want that to go away. And in the meantime, maybe revisit the conversation in greater depth to determine is is this in our next budget, too? I don't know. It's the cons. It's the same amount, right? You kept the same. Yeah, we I didn't change. Yeah.

089No, that's all. So, we're running Oh, is that running at a deficit deficit? Yes, it's in it's in the budget as a deficit for next year. That's why we added funds to it because of the deficit. Yeah. Okay. So, yes, it is in the operating budget to fund it. And then unfortunately, we don't know what we won't have the final number until. So, piggy backing off it, I think we should go to the full we board. The board has to put vote on this tradition at the next meeting and then tell them we're not proposing a rate change that maybe we should look at food change or advertising like I don't mean like paying for advertising I mean using parent square let's not no I understand um I think that the director of food services

090would would greatly entertain being able to sit down with some people parents and board members and say what would you like to do I think that with people a round table. Yeah. Just a discussion about it. Absolutely. And she can tell you all the things I can't tell you like how many grains of salt and how many levels of protein because the I don't know the food requirements. The food requirements are extremely stri. And even though you see cinnamon rolls, it is not a cinnamon roll that you or I would ever go out and buy. No. Gosh. It is not that kind of cinnamon. I told you it's donuts. It's just easy disqualified. Yeah, it's not even a donut that you would buy either. One last kind of thought for this is like so yes,

091if the food bank has increased, then obviously that that probably does play a part in people having the ability to buy the breakfast, the lunches. Um, also I just want to put a burden in everyone's ear. There could be parents like me who are like, "Oh, the prices are going up. The food is not meeting what I want for my kids to eat, and so I'm not going to spend the money on it." So there also could be some type of balance between that. It's probably more like a 7030 of 30% of parents maybe like me, but um just to kind of put that out there too. And I think it changes too as you get into the higher grade levels because a lot of older kids would be making their own lunch, but they're

092getting it at school. Yeah. So, and it increases in time of year as well. So, we usually see a good bump in December because nobody at home wants to. And right now, you're going to start seeing we'll see a big increase in May and June because parents are tired of making lunch. Yeah. So, we end up having a little bump at the end of the year and a little bump in the middle of the hallway of people and that's, you know, that's life. That's the way it is. So, yeah. Um, okay. So, we can bring it forward if that's what you guys want to do. That's I feel like that's a good decision. Yeah. with adding. If you don't change it, do you have to vote on it though? No. Can we add it as

093a discussion item though? Agenda. We can move it forward to the full board. That's what we can vote on. Well, we're not voting on anything. No, I mean, we're not voting. We're just deciding to move it to the full full board. Well, if you're not changing the price, we typically wouldn't bring it to the full board. You bring it to the full board if you're going to change the price. So like you're not What about opening up for a conversation with the food service people? Do we need should we bring can we bring that to the full board so that we Yeah. Just talk to the superintendent. Do it. Oh yeah. And and um do you guys think that the other board members would be upset to not be part of the conversation of that?

094I think you can open. Jackie I do know wants to be part of it. Keep in mind the number of people present. It becomes an actual board of ed meeting because you'll have a quorum. Right. Anything you're trying to do at a meeting. Yeah. Anytime. Anytime that you're all together and actually engaging hold a board of ed meeting for something like that though, you can talk to Patty. Okay. Talk to Patty about that file discussion. I mean, I personally think this is so important for all kids. Very important. Important. So I Okay. I think this is the first time this board has taken this so seriously because every year I feel like I'm the only person sitting at the table being like, "Oh my god, people really this food is just horrible." Well, because the

095money was coming in, why we can't fix what's broken, right? It was working. But still, it was like the quality of this food, it's not food. We need to pay attention to this. And especially the breakfast, that is not breakfast. That is putting that kid on the trajectory to like Believe it or not, there's there's not that much sugar in those disgusting things. I'm sorry. It's not sugar. It's just a process. It's not like sugar. And we used Yeah. Which is not good for kids anyways. And we used to be able to make stuff from scratch. It's such a shame. It's the same story with the dishwasher. It was so nice when we came in. Well, because they added all these parameters. You can only have this much soap. So, if you're making things from

096scratch, you'd have to be able to scientifically determine that you're within those guidelines. There are chefs out there or ever feels like they have circumstances out there after we put the spa in. There are chefs that come to the schools that work with all the schools and do actually do, you know, trainings on how to do more handmade and hands-on. There are some things. So there writing grants maybe we can do that there we go on the grant wish list. So it is an option there are those opportunities um and there you know food service companies that if you don't feel like going I mean there's a lot of other options as well so not for tonight's discussion. Okay. All right. Our next item still Cindy finance March year-to- date warrant. I honestly did not

097take a peek at it. So that's so we're actually on target um for this year. There are a few areas um where we get to this point of the year um so March and March we'll have a few areas that you'll see some negative balances in there. Um this is where I'm going to start um talking about grants, putting in the grant funds, uh getting reimbursed for some of the grants. Those will help some of those items um come down. There's also times where you'll see things in I'm trying to find out whether it's in this month or not, maybe it's in next month where like the elementary school um we pay for all the buses for their field trips, but actually the purchase the PTO actually pays for all the buses. So we pay

098for them so it comes out of here and by the time we get the check there might be a an up and down necessarily so it might look like we're paying for field trips for the elementary school but really the PTO is and they just have to reimburse us. So, there are some ups and downs within here, but overall the financial health, which is the most important thing that you guys need to know um for uh the district through March, is in good shape. Um we're right about on target as to where we were um this year. Um I haven't had to use that letter word, which means freeze to the admins that are very happy about that. Um and we're kind of we're moving along. We're we're on target. So, um, you know, we're

099getting close to the year end. We're going to start closing out. You'll see there's still, um, a bunch of incumbrances in there. We're going to start April, you'll still see them, but come May, a lot of those incumbrances will start going down to zeros um because we have to start closing out for the year and we can't carry any money from one year to the next. So, that's where we're at. If anybody has questions, I would just ask that for the full board meeting. Better printed. No, I mean you don't even have to give me a copy because I hate all the waste of paper. Um Jim would always like to see his legal breakdown, right? And as at this time all the legal breakdowns and I'll go back through it again. Um and I

100meant to attach this. I'm sorry. They've all been under general. So Okay. But I will definitely still include it include the way Yeah. No included as as you guys are used to seeing it. Um, and we've been doing some close out on the legal side. So, anyway, I'll have that absolutely available for you. Definitely. Looks good to me. Do you have any questions? I do not have any questions. Oh, I did have a question. Um, the PTO pays for the field trip buses at the elementary school. So last year they had quite a few field trips cut from their budget um at the earliest level even before trees was here some of them got cut but the PTO has stepped up to pay for them because they didn't want to get rid of that's not

101a regular thing though they they they used to they have they paid for quite a bit but what happens is more of a regular which is nice because they're raising money to help the kids right something direct the PTO has the money and the budget to do programs to put it on then we do pay for it. That was something that two or three years ago we started. Yeah. And it really the only reason why I brought up is there's a lag. So I'm paying the bill but I don't get reimbured, you know. Yeah. Yeah. That's the only reason why I brought it up. No, I understood it. I just I didn't understand that. Yes, they do. And yeah, it's been really nice. They made sure that the elementary school kept I think all of

102their field trip experiences. It's been fabulous. Very very kind. Hey, do you have any questions? I don't think so. I mean, just all the negatives in the in the beginning. I mean, some of it was special ed. Yes. Um, why the dental insurance? Did you already say that? So, no. So, the dental insurance will get our final bill coming up. So, I think we're over encumbered on that. Um, we also get monies in from um retirees and TRBs and people like that for our uh dental insurance. Um I mean for all of our insuranceances too. So those numbers came a little skewed. March and April um they'll continue that May you'll see everything settled down. So we should be in good shape but we're not but overall we're not over. It's just over in those

103specific line. Now why is the line item like the same for dental insurance technical services in page 14? Oh I'm here. Oh you're not looking at Oh no. Don't look at that page. I mean you'll look at that page. These these numbers are coming from I'm sorry I was looking at the wrong page. I was looking at my report. I always look at the district totals. Yeah, look at the district totals. Those numbers that you're seeing are pulling through munis. These are all negative because we have a not rolled the year in. So in munis my budget's not in mun like so these numbers come out kind of looking kind of buggy. So if you see this this cash account dental insurance this is actually uh not first of all it's not operating this is

104shared services. So this money goes into shared services and this is a shared services balance. The these individual pages are the pages that I use to show to you what we pay out of each one of the different funds. So like I mentioned before we have the cafeteria fund. Our fund is the one that's highlighted right here. That's what we pay out of. But then there's the cafeteria fund that we pay, transition fund that we pay, um um IDA which is a grant fund that we pay and then shared services. So the way these numbers over here are generated from Lunis and mostly it's because the budget's not in there. So everything's negative that's so really you want to look at that page. You want to look at the overall page at the but we

105are in good shape. We have about 4.2% 2% of our our electricity oils. Oil. So, we will go over in oil. Although, I do have to say that Dons uh locked in at a really good rate for next year. We still have to go through the rest of ours and I can't remember 257 or something. 237. It was a really good rate. So, we're excited. I'm not excited. So, other than that, it's just the normal special education and transportation which will be over at the end of the year. Over. Now, we do have um at least one more excess cost coming to us that will help reduce that overage for special education tuition. And if all things go the way we hope, there's a third for the first time, probably last time, um additional expenditure

106of maybe of I mean in of money coming in from the state of $60,000 to go to special education tuition as well. Um, but until I actually see it come through, I won't know that it's definitely going to be $60,000, but it is my estimation that we'll get about $60,000 over and above what we estimated. So, that's that's good. Um, and then none of the grants are put in here yet. So, I'm actually working on grants. That's what I was doing today. So, we'll start putting the grants in. So, you'll see some of the things like purchase services for professional development. That will come down a little bit because we get grants for some of that. So, um, some of those negatives, but the way that we do our budget doesn't account for grants that

107is that right? No, we do account for grants. We already account for grants. So, if something happens and we don't get those grants, then a problem. Our grants are two-year grants. So, when I'm doing the budget for 2526, I already had um been awarded, okay, the grants for this upcoming for 256. Okay, so we already know what those grants are. If we use it all year one, then we know there's nothing left year two. But sometimes we don't use it all year one, but they are two. They roll and then the packet comes again to apply and then it's another. So it's odd years and even years next budget season. We do every Yeah. Every year we apply. Every year we apply. So they they're two-year grants. So like we'll get one grant and we

108have two years to spend it. Then we'll get another grant. We have two years to spend. Then we get another grant and two years to spend it. loads of fun to watch the how to figure those out. But um but we know the grants before we do the budget. Okay. Or as we're doing the budget, right? That makes sense. Okay. So the only thing that again is up and down is um excess cost when tuition kind of depends on what we Right. And the formula for the grants is based on the poverty in the town. Um, so it's just remarkable how that formula works because the grants are low and they're actually lower this year than they were last year. Very low compared to what I was getting in another district that you might think

109it's a wealthier district but has a higher poverty rate based on the formula. So it's just really interesting. Yeah, it's really skewed here in town. It's interesting. And all of our grants are lower this year. Well, not all. I would say 90% of our grants are lower. Not significantly lower, but we normally get $280,000 in IDA. Next year we're getting 276,000. I don't know, but so close. And I don't know, we've been going up for so many years now. I find that some of those grants are going IDA 619. We normally get 9,900. Next year we're getting 9,700. So it's not a huge difference, but still why is it going down? Do you have any updates for the 25 26 budget? Um, so the only thing and I'm sure Teresa probably shared with the board

110of ed already um is that the insurance came in at uh 9%. Rather than 15%. So that not only is a plus for our employees because you remember that that means that their insurance rates were going to go up 15%. Now their insurance rates are only going to go up 9%. So yeah, the state is on the same which is interesting. They went up 9% too. The state of Connecticut um for those who wanted the state plan they also went up 9%. So um I don't know whether you want to share this with you. Um, this is what once you guys did your decision making sure I gave you one of these already, but um, once you guys made your decisions on moving things around, this is just the overall cover page. I didn't give

111you all the backup. Um, I don't want all the backup. I don't want the cover page. So, the last part is with the $500,000 and then the changes that y'all made between employees and adding to special education and legal other things. Um, with all those changes, we we were at before knowing what the insurance was um short about $172,000. That we still would have had a fine of the $500,000 that the board of finance has um cut for us. I'm happy to announce that 9% and it's kind of funny, but it would gets us down $174,000 out of um like we're right on the money. We were right on the money. We were the gap to make up the 500,000. It has just been absorbed by this reduction by the reduction to 9%. Very similar

112to last year with the 240 that we were cut. Wait, just by insurance? Just by the insurance alone. My insurance loans. Yeah, that 172 that I had the gap from where we were with the 500,000. We still were like 174. Is that 172 514? We were still short and we would have had to find a way. The board of education would have had to find a way. So find it if if insurance had stayed at 15, you guys would be looking for 17. But we've already been talking about how we expected it to not be 15. Correct. Thankfully already been talking. So right, that's why I shared those minutes that said estimate with a 15% increase so that everyone knew why the board of ed did that. Right. So, so, but with the 9% recalculating

113at 9 versus 15 is a savings of 174,000. So, you guys do not have to continue to look for additional cuts. We can absorb the the rest of it within that insurance. So, that's where we're at with that. Oh, we're reducing our operating by 500,000. Right. Right. Yep. Which is the 140. So, the total Yes. the 145 um 1,450,453 408 is what the total increase over 2024 is. It gets you to a 6.06%. So what I did was I took all the things that we need to do, figured out where we were finally and realized that we still needed $172,000 to come up with a full 500. And that was um thankfully voted on by the insurance rates at 9%. So you um You don't have to go back to the board and say we

114need to put any more money at this point. So it will be absorbed. That additional bit will be absorbed by insurance. So you put the amount of money that we voted on and moved everything around. Yes. Okay. Yes. So up here you won't see it because salaries is I mean the salaries is um different. You'll see the change in salary amount from 6.36 is down to now 3.52. That was the biggest change. Um, and then there were some changes in benefits directly related just to those changes in salaries. Um, and a lot of the other numbers kind of change. You'll see special education, you know, purchase services kind of went up a little bit. That includes legal. Like I didn't give you all the background. This is just summary page. But with the moves that

115was voted on by the board and with the cuts that were voted on by the board, this is where you landed. So, so we're 606. You are at 606%. That is a $500,000 cut from the original request. I thought that was a $600,000 cut was 606. Nope. 600 was 5.67. Okay. Yeah. All right. Just did the math, too. That makes sense. 1,43,000. Yeah. 408. All right. Just by the skin of our teeth. Wow. Be hopefully end of May. Oh, sorry. On voting day hopefully. So, town hall meeting is next Tuesday at 8:00 at the um high school auditorium. You might as well say that we're still live. And the referendum is Tuesday after Memorial Day, which I think is May 7th. So, the 20th, no, next week is the 13th. Next, yeah, the next Tuesday

116the 13th town meeting to referendum. There's no vote at the town hall meeting. It's just a chance for further discussion. They want to discuss, but they can't change anything. So, what time is that at? 8:00 p.m. And I vote on the times technically for voting, but the voting is supposed to be the referendum is supposed to be Tuesday, May 27th. Any additional questions, everyone before we adjourn? All right, Cindy, adjourn us